


Beauty Is Pain, But Is It Worth It?

by twilight_moon09



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Body Image, Bucky Barnes Returns, Bulimia, Celebrity culture, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Paparazzi, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Undercover as a Couple, gratuitous references to things in pop culture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 07:50:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5777494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilight_moon09/pseuds/twilight_moon09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Darcy realizes she has feelings for Steve, she gets it in her head that they could never be together. So in true Darcy Lewis fashion, she decides to just move away and be done with it. But her plans fall short when she ends up in the back of an SUV against her will. Suddenly she's being forced to go on undercover on a reality show to date Captain America, and all the secrets she'd hidden about her past and her childhood are threatening to come to the light. All she wanted, all she ever wanted since she was little girl, was to disappear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauty Is Pain, But Is It Worth It?

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: I do not own the Avengers, any Marvel characters, or the like.  
> Second Fair warning: This is gonna be rough. I wrote it super late on a sugar high from airhead extreme bites. I thought it'd be an okay one shot, but a really great fleshed out story. There will be grammatical errors, and jokes that are only funny to the incarnation of Darcy that lives in my head (which is really a culmination of all the Darcys that I've read about on here, so really, it's kind of a compliment).   
> Enjoy.

“Ms. Lewis. Hope you are doing well.”

Darcy looked around the nondescript room, standard fluorescent lighting and uncomfortable chairs. The agent sitting across from her had a bland face, unremarkable really, with sandy brown hair and thick rimmed glasses. She sighed, and once again played with the loose thread on the left arm of the purple sweater her grandmother knit for her.

“As well as I can be, Agent Glasses.” A little nagging voice in her head started berating her, sit up straight, make eye contact, be respectful, as it always did. The voice sounded a lot like her mother.

“Actually it’s Agent Adams.” He answered firmly. “I didn’t mean to offend, but it’s not like you guys wear name-tags. So I have to give you all nicknames in my head. For instance, the big guy with all the arm hair standing behind the two-way mirror, he’s Agent Bear. And the woman who escorted me in here, with the big nose like a beak and the silver hair, she’s Agent Buckbeak. Sorry, I ramble when I’m caught off guard.” Darcy answered.

“Our apologies for the clandestine nature of this meeting but—”

“Clandestine? Dude, you staked me out for days apparently and waited until I went out to get my 2:30 ‘just because’ latte to put me in the back of a black SUV against my will. This whole thing has been shady from the jump. And with all the messed up shit going on with Shield since the Hydra magic trick, I think I’m well within my rights to be a little suspicious.”

“I can assure you Ms. Lewis, we’re not Hydra.”

“Which is exactly what Hydra would say.” She retorted.

“We were tasked by our superiors to bring you in, the Director gave the order.”

“You know what, I’ve had enough of Hydra’s, Shield’s, or whoever’s bullshit! Bring in Maria Hill now! I wanna talk to her about basic human and civil rights!”

“Maria Hill is not in charge of this operation, she’s not the Director Ms. Lewis.”

“What the hell are you talking about, of course she is, I see her in Stark Tower almost every day. I want to talk to Maria, I’m done talking to the minions.” Darcy was getting annoyed.

The door opened, and in walked a ghost. A face Darcy never thought she would see again. “I’m afraid Ms. Hill won’t be joining us today, Ms. Lewis.” The man said. Darcy’s eyeballs nearly popped out of her skull. “Agent Ipod Thief?” She said in disbelief.

“I’ll take the meeting from here, Agent Adams, you can go.” Adams nodded and gathered his things to exit the room. Coulson gave her a slight smile, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and took the seat across from her.

Darcy’s head was spinning. “Dude…you’re dead. And not like 'Sam and Dean' dead where you could possibly come back through some shitty plot hole, but like, _really_ dead. Thor told me what happened.”

“Well Ms. Lewis, things are not always as they seem. And I’m afraid that’s the theme of today’s meeting.” He sighed and opened up the folder sitting in front of him. “For example, the recent collapse of Shield. Hydra had been embedding itself in the roots of our once great organization, causing political disasters, and shaping world history since day one. Since the very founding of Shield, Hydra had been planning and planting seeds all over the world through the use of Shield’s resources and political connections. Countless people lost their lives over the world’s darkest secret, our darkest secret, that the majority of us never even knew existed.”

“I saw what happened in DC…all those people who stood against them, who gave their lives for what they believed in…they saved millions of people.”

“Yes they did, and their sacrifices, much like the other men and women who have given their lives for this country, were not in vain and will never be forgotten. So we tore it all down. Started building again from the bottom up. We weeded out those who were suspected to be Hydra, who’s family members we suspected to be Hydra, even the people whose neighbors were suspected to be Hydra. We were able to smoke out most of them, but as you know Hydra has a mantra.” He said tiredly.

“Cut off one head, two more will take its place.” Darcy answered.

“And no matter how many terrorists we find, how many sleeper agents we capture, how many hidden bases we storm, they just keep popping up as quickly as we’re knocking them down. We are at war, Ms. Lewis, and the entire planet is the battlefield. Do you have any idea how much the political climate of the world has changed in the last 70 years? In the last 10 years? In the last 10 months?” He asked rhetorically. For the first time Darcy got a good glimpse of how weary he was after everything he’d been through. His skin was a tad paler, his hair was a bit thinner, and the wrinkles around his eyes were more pronounced than they’d been in New Mexico. “Of course you do. You were a political science major before you took the internship with Dr. Foster, right?”

“Yeah, it was the only internship available to get the final credits I needed to graduate from Culver.” She answered, suddenly willing to be more open to what he had to say.

He smirked just a tad. “Funny how life happens that way, isn’t it?”

“If you think that’s worth a laugh, have a look at my student loans. You’ll have a riot.”

“Actually, that’s part of the reason we brought you in today. We have a proposition for you, and I’d really like it if you would hear out the entire offer before you make up your mind about it.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to ask me to volunteer for some secret government super soldier serum experiment?”

“I think it’s safe to say that after the events with Doctor Banner and Royal Marine Blonsky in Harlem, we have steered clear from revisiting certain projects.”

“I was wondering how many times you guys would put your hand in the flame before you learned fire was hot.”

“We’ve gotten of topic. If you’ll allow me to finish?” He asked sassily.

“Go ahead, Son of Coul.”

“To preface, I have to apologize because after the data dump in Washington we had to reevaluate all past loose threads, connections, or any by-proxy affiliations with our assets.”

“You mean people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“Exactly. Anyone we’d already vetted as a non-threat instantly became a threat again, because the agents who did the vetting could have been compromised. Since the fall of the Triskelion, we’ve been surveilling every person of interest to make sure no one slipped through the cracks. Which in turn, led to numerous invasions of privacy and violations of rights for the sake of national security.”

“When has that stopped you guys before? And why are you telling me this?”

“Darcy, we’ve been monitoring you online. We know about the Shield Academy application you’ve filled out but haven’t submitted yet. We know about all the cat videos you watch, the Tumblrs you follow, and the Tumblrs that you try to hide that you follow.”

“So I guess the big speech in the beginning was just to make me feel empathetic towards you guys invading my life? Sorry, but go to hell on that one!” She yelled.

“You agreed to let me finish before you made up your mind.” He said tiredly.

“No, fuck you and all the other men in black assholes in this place Coulson! That’s wrong and you know it!”

“You’ll be happy to know that we found no evidence of you ever having ties with Hydra.”

“Yeah, no shit! What the hell did you think I was—”

“But your intern Ian did.” He said calmly.

Darcy silenced immediately, in shock. She sat back in her chair, feeling like she’d lost all the wind in her sails. Ian? The intern? Hydra? But he seemed so harmless...sure they’d made out in London but they had just saved the world and he’d saved her life. You can’t blame her if her lady bits were kind of kicked into overdrive. It just didn’t add up…Ian wouldn’t hurt a fly. Seriously, one day he found a spider in the bathroom and wouldn’t get down off the couch until she went in there and picked it up in a cup. How could he have been Hydra? Shield had approved him since they’d been funding Jane’s research after Thor’s arrival in Mexico.

Oh…well damn.

“The Intern was Hydra.” Darcy whispered softly to herself.

“Ian’s real name was Ivan, and his mission was to learn as much about Foster’s research posing as an unpaid intern for three months. On the last day, he was to kill Dr. Foster and steal as much data on her theories and experiments to open an Einstein Rosen-bridge as he possibly could. It shouldn’t have been an issue since Thor had been gone for so long, and with no word, no one expected him to return. Even Dr. Foster had her doubts he would come back. But obviously, with the invasion, everything went topside.”

“Holy hotdogs.” Darcy said, still in shock.

“The point in me telling you all this was so you could have some sort of basis of understanding for why we did what we did, and why we do what we have to do. Darcy, why were you considering applying to become a part of Shield?”

“Did this just become a job interview?”

He shrugged. “Depends on how you answer the question.”

She sat back in her seat and looked down at her hands, continuing to play with that loose thread on her sleeve.

“If I’m being honest…I’m not really sure why. Before I met Jane I had this whole big plan…this idea of what my future was going to be like. I’d be in public relations…some big shot living in the city with a loft apartment and a car that wasn’t a piece of shit. I’d get to voice my opinions and actually be heard. I’d be taken seriously by all of my peers, and I’d prove that I’m not just some set of boobs. I guess I did it because I’m tired of being a glorified babysitter. Getting coffee, transcribing notes, ordering lab equipment, and wrangling scientists who sometime forget to eat, shower, or sleep. I know what I’m doing is important because the things that they’re working on…it’s going to change the world and how we view it. But I just felt like I had the potential to be more than what I am now. It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

“You felt that you could find purpose with Shield? Even after all scrutiny we’ve endured recently?”

“Yes? I don’t know, maybe…I’d like to point out I never submitted the application, by the way. I’d actually made up my mind yesterday that I was going to resign and leave New York altogether.”

“I’m afraid that’s why we intervened…once we saw the internet searches for plane tickets to Dublin, we had to step in.”

“What do you mean intervene?” She asked skeptically.

“Darcy, you can’t leave. You can’t leave your job, you can’t leave the country, you can’t even leave the state. It truly is a matter of national security. Unfortunately, you know too much, and you’ve witnessed to many events to ever be a normal citizen again.”

“If this is joke, I’m not laughing.”

“It’s no laughing matter. I’m completely serious. You can never go back to your life as it once was. The knowledge you have is much too valuable to let fly off in the wind. There is no way we could allow you to leave. If you were ever accosted the enemy, it would literally become a matter of life and death.”

“You’re shitting me right? You’re actually trying to tell me how to live my life? I thought Loki stabbed you in the chest, not the brain! This is complete bullshit, and I know my rights! You can’t do this! You can’t stop me!”

“Darcy, you know as well as I do that no matter where you try to run we’ll find you.”

“Bullshit! You couldn’t find a rattlesnake in the desert if it slithered up and bit you on the nose! You couldn’t even see Hydra right in front of your goddamn faces! I think I’ll take my chances!” She was red with fury now.

Coulson could sense he was losing control of the meeting, and decided it was time to make his final pitch. He took another look down at her application. “Under achievements, special recognition and special skills you mentioned clerical management, light experience with engineering, and a mild understanding of astrophysics.”

“Yeah, what about it?” She barked, still fuming.

“But you didn’t mention the background in pageantry or all of the awards you’ve won.”

Darcy froze, the wind again knocked out of her. She could feel the color draining from her face. “Background in what?”

“The beauty competitions you’ve won…all over the country I might add. All the way up until your senior year of high school.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Coulson made a face. “Come on, Darcy. You really think legally changing your name would hide who you were? Your family is one of the wealthiest families in the country. Until you graduated and got accepted at Culver, you were considered the sweetheart of the pageant world. Your adolescent face was everywhere. We’ve known all along.”

Darcy sighed, feeling her world crashing down around her and resignation racing through her veins. She felt defeated. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

“Care to share why you’re not proud?”

“It was never something I wanted…my entire life since I was four was about pageants. My childhood was not a happy one, and I’m not close with my family. When I turned 18 I wanted to start over, and separate myself from what my life had been. I changed my name, and went to Culver University on a scholarship. I did everything on my own, I didn’t need my family’s money or name.”

“You never told anyone about this.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

“No, I didn’t. I never even told Jane. None of my friends knew the truth about who I was.”

“Not even Captain Rogers?”

Darcy looked up at his name. and squared her eyes at Coulson. “No…Steve didn’t know.”

“Steve huh…would you say that you and The Captain were close acquaintances?”

“Steve and I are…were friends.”

“From the reports I received you guys were more than friends; you were pretty close.”

She thought carefully about what to say next. “I guess we were pretty close. The day I met him, long before DC, he was at one of Tony’s parties sitting in the corner by himself. He put on a good face, but I know what lonely looked like when I saw it. So I went up and told him a joke that made him laugh, and we hit it off from there. Steve is like my best friend.”

“And when did you realize you had feelings for him?” Coulson said with a straight face.

Darcy just looked at him with a brief moment of clarity. “Since when did you become Dr. Phil?”

“Did you know my first name is Phil?” He answered with that knowing smirk.

“I did not.” Darcy answered in the same knowing tone.

“Also, I’ve recently…let’s say adopted a daughter who’s very close to you in age. She dealt with some similar issues recently and opened up to me about it. Not to be arrogant but I feel like I have a pretty good handle on ‘the feels’ as she called it.”

“Okay, I’m just gonna put a pin in that later because my brain might explode if I think about it any longer. Back to the story…I guess I realized I liked him as more than a friend about a month ago. And once I realized how stupid I was being because we’d never be together, I decided a fresh start was best. We sort of drifted apart.”

“Do you really believe you would’ve been able to leave…to live the rest of your life knowing you never told him how you feel?”

“I firmly believed I really didn’t have a choice.” She said, and for a moment Coulson felt sorry for her. He shuffled the folders and put them in a neat stack. “Okay, last bulletin point before we’re done. I’m sure you’re aware of all the backlash that Shield, and subsequently The Avengers Initiative have been receiving in recent weeks.”

“Of course. Maria Hill and Natasha have already had to appear before the Senate. It won’t be long before Steve is subpoenaed. Lord knows what will happen if they ever find The Winter Soldier.”

“Correct. And believe me, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. He’s a literal ghost. He can’t be found anywhere. Which means the media, and the government have no one to put the blame on. They have no fall guy, no patsy to be held accountable for all the sleeper agents Hydra had hidden throughout the government. So, we’ve devised a way to redirect the focus of the situation to give us more time to find the Soldier. Now full disclosure, you’re going to absolutely hate this idea, but you agreed to hear me out.”

“Finally, we get to the meat and potatoes. Let’s get this over with so I can go home and binge-watch I-Zombie.”

He gave momentary pause at the wild things that always came out of her mouth, unfiltered. “While the World Security Counsel no longer controls Shield, they still control a fair portion of the United States government, military too. And they too need a distraction while they hunt the soldier, to take the heat off all the summons taking place on Capitol Hill, so they came up with the bright idea to stage a courtship.”

“I’m sorry, stage a courtship? Did we finally invent a time machine?”

“Bear with me here. They decided that a romantic relationship for a national icon like Captain America would be the perfect diversion to buy them time to search for the winter soldier.”

“You’re making this up.”

“I wish I was. You have no idea how badly I wish I was. They’ve actually decided to host a reality competition on national television.”

“You’re fucking with me…what does Steve have to say about this?”

“He’s obviously against it. But the military has him in a chokehold because of some loophole they found in his military contract from his U.S.O. days, something about him still being contractually obligated to make appearances and whatnot for another year and a half.”

“You’re making this up.” Darcy said in shock.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not?”

“Well why doesn’t he just say no? I’m sure Tony’s lawyers can find him some way out of the contract.”

“They tried. Apparently if he breaches the contract agreements in any way, he’ll be court martialed or worse, sent to prison.”

“They would actually put Captain America in jail?”

“Just goes to show you how desperate they’re becoming. I mean could you think of anything worse? Captain America court martialed? In jail? They’d have their fall guy wrapped up in a neat little bow. They see this as a win-win.”

“But the public wouldn’t stand for it.”

“The same public who let a fear-mongering President start a war in the middle east for no reason?”

“Point taken.”

“It’ll be a way to take peoples’ minds off the real issues and allow them to be involved in one the most elusive celebrity’s love life. They select a few random women, the public makes their choices, and after 6-8 months he picks a girl and proposes. For three months they plan a wedding bigger than God, then 4 months later, they’re divorced. He’s done with his contract. And hopefully, the Winter Soldier has been brought to justice so we can finally begin refocusing on the things that really matter. It’s the perfect way to humanize the Avengers as well, and make them more likeable. I’m sure they’ll be starring heavily on the show. This is what your government thinks of you as a people, by the way.”

“You’re making this up.” Darcy said for the ump-teenth time.

“We’ve already established that I’m not.”

Darcy sighed hard, blowing a big wind from her cheeks like balloons. “Okay, let’s just say hypothetically I believe you. What does any of this have to do with me?”

“Come on Darcy, you’re not dumb. You know what this has to do with you.”

“I had a feeling, but I kind of didn’t want to admit to myself.”

He laced his fingers on the table. “The way we see it this is the perfect opportunity for nefarious organizations like Hydra or even AIM to get close to Captain America. Right under everyone’s noses, they can slip in an operative to manipulate him, or worse assassinate him. While we’re well aware the Captain can protect himself, we’d like to have our own man with an ear to the ground in case things get hairy. To help us weed out any potential threats. Or should I say woman, perhaps.”

“You’re making this up.”

“Please stop saying that.”

“Are you guys sure Tony had nothing to do with this? Because this sounds like the type of sick shit he’d come up with just for his own amusement.”

“I can confirm that Stark had nothing to do with this particular idea’s inception, though I’m told he’s been lamenting that fact.”

“Why me? I mean seriously, why not any other girl? You know if you asked Kristin from Statistics, she’d probably say yes.”

Coulson smiled. “I’ve heard that.”

Darcy sat quietly as she thought it over. A romantic relationship? With Steve? It’s what she’s been dreaming about. But would it be real? He’d probably agree to it immediately, going for someone he knows and trusts. But he’d probably see it as a favor…which it could totally be interpreted as. But would she tell him the truth? Would his feelings be real, or would they just be for show? Hers definitely would be. And wouldn’t it just be great TV when she fell on her face and got humiliated.

Or would he just say no to the whole thing and call her crazy, not taking her seriously. And let’s not forget that in the end it wouldn’t really be up to him, it’d be up to the viewers. What if they didn’t like her? What if—

Darcy had another startling revelation in her head.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

Coulson’s face saddened with years of disappoint. “No.” He said softly. “Not really.”

She sunk lower into her chair, looking down at the thread in her hands again. “Think of it this way Darcy. You could enter the competition undercover, and help protect someone you really care about. If you win, you get the chance to have everything you wanted with the man you’re in love with. And if it doesn’t work out, when it’s over we’ll set you up with a nice job in a field you actually care about. Wherever you want. This competition would be a cakewalk for you, you’ve done it since childhood. Or you can say no…and stay exactly where you are doing the exact same thing you’ve been doing never realizing your full potential. If you truly ever considered joining Shield, you can consider this your first trial run. This job is a lot of making hard choices and sacrifices, and doing things you don’t all the time want to do. But in the end, you can fall asleep each night knowing you did the right thing for the right reasons.”

Darcy tugged on the worn out thread one more time, before taking a deep breath and looking Coulson in the eyes. “If I do this…it can in no way be like the movie Miss Congeniality.”

“How in the world is it like that?”

“Frumpy girl gets picked by a bunch of guys in suits to get a makeover and go undercover in a beauty competition to unravel a dastardly plot…Miss Congeniality.”

“I can say with confidence that you are in no way frumpy nor in a movie. As I’ve stated before, I couldn’t make this up if I tried.”

“I think on some deeper level I know that, I just keep hoping that this is all just a really bad fanfiction.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Whoop, there it is!
> 
> Seriously this zany idea came to me in a dream after I fell asleep not watching Miss Congeniality, but Bob's Burgers! Weird, right? I had to point out the Miss Congeniality parallels though, they just became too real as I started writing lol. I've never written Coulson before, but I've always imagined him to have that sort of dry humor (even though I watch Agents of Shield faithfully.) I hope you guys liked it, just thought I'd give it crack. It was also in part inspired by two songs, the biggest of which is 'Pretty Hurts'. It will have it's serious moments, heartbreaking moments, and deal with real issues like eating disorders and the like. Bits and pieces of this fanfic were inspired by "The Reports About My Love Life Have Been Greatly Exaggerated", a Steve/Darcy fic by Amerna. Her work was a true inspiration! Sound off below!!


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